Privacy Policy

We collect only what we need to run the club and its site:

• Account information — your name, email address, and your membership tier. There is no password: signing in works by a one-time code we email you, and we store only a hashed copy of each code for the few minutes it is valid.
• Content you provide — trees and photos in your plant library, care logs, forum posts and comments, show submissions, and messages you send us.
• Payment information — when you pay dues or fees, our payment processor handles your card details directly. We do not see or store full card numbers; we keep only limited records such as a customer or subscription identifier and your membership status.
• Technical information — basic log data and a session cookie needed to keep you signed in and keep the site secure.

We use your information to:

• create and maintain your account and membership;
• provide member features — the plant library, forum, events, and shows;
• process dues and event or show fees through our payment processor;
• send you account, membership, event, and show notifications, and occasional club news you can opt out of;
• keep the site secure and improve how it works.

We use a small number of essential cookies — chiefly a session cookie that keeps you logged in and protects forms against cross-site request forgery. We do not use third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only in these limited cases:

• Service providers who help us operate the site — our payment processor (for dues and fees), an avatar image service, our email delivery provider, and mobile wallet passes — using your information only to provide those services.
• Other members, for anything you post in shared spaces (see “Public content” below).
• Legal reasons, when we reasonably believe disclosure is required by law or to protect the rights, safety, or property of the Society, our members, or the public.

Some of what you submit is visible to others by design — forum threads and comments, and show entries shown as part of a show — along with the name or display name attached to them. Please treat anything you post in these spaces as public. Your plant library and care logs are private to your account unless you choose to share a tree.

To show a profile picture, we may pass a one-way hashed version of your email address to an avatar service (Gravatar). If you don't have an avatar with that service, no image is returned and we simply show your initials.

We keep your information for as long as your account is active and as needed to run the club, meet legal and accounting obligations, and resolve disputes. When you close your account, we delete or anonymize your personal information within a reasonable period, except where we must keep certain records (such as payment history). Residual copies may persist briefly in backups.

You can:

• view and update your account details when you're signed in;
• manage or cancel your membership through the billing portal;
• opt out of non-essential emails using the link in those messages;
• ask us to access, correct, or delete your personal information by emailing contact@ckbs.info.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights over your personal information; we honor those rights as required by applicable law.

The site isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their personal information without verifiable parental consent. Youth memberships are intended to be arranged and overseen by a parent or guardian. If you believe a child has provided us information without consent, contact us and we'll remove it.

We take reasonable measures to protect your information — sign-in codes are stored only as hashes and expire within minutes, payments are handled by a PCI-compliant processor, and the site is served over encrypted connections. No method of storage or transmission is perfectly secure, so we can't guarantee absolute security, but we work to protect your data.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We'll revise the “last updated” date above and, for significant changes, provide reasonable notice.

Questions or requests about your privacy? Email us at contact@ckbs.info.